Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Bolivia has nationalized a unit of
Spain’s Abertis Infraestructura SA that operates the country’s
three biggest airports, according to the government’s official
news agency.

The nationalization was carried out because Servicios de
Aeropuertos Bolivianos SA, or Sabsa, failed to invest in
improving the airports of Cochabamba, Santa Cruz and El Alto,
which serves the capital La Paz, the Bolivian Information Agency
ABI reported on its website today. Sabsa is also partly owned by
Madrid-based Aena Aeropuertos SA.

The 1997 privatization of Sabsa amounted to “robbery” and
“looting,” President Evo Morales said during a press
conference in Cochabamba, ABI reported. During that time Sabsa’s
profits have been “exorbitant” and its investments
“ridiculous”, Morales said.

Morales, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and a
former union leader, has moved to put the telecommunications,
energy and water industries under state control since taking
office in 2006. Bolivia will hold presidential elections in
December next year.

Shares in Barcelona-based Abertis today closed down 1.4
percent at 12.7 euros, after dropping as much as 2.6 percent
during trading today. The company said in an e-mailed statement
that it respects Bolivia’s decision and trusts it will receive
adequate compensation. The Bolivian government froze the airport
fees Sabsa collects over 10 years ago, the company said.

Miguel Angel Garcia, a spokesman for Aena, declined by
telephone to comment.

Third Seizure

The decree signed by Morales today marks the third
nationalization in less than a year of assets belonging to
Spanish companies operating in the Andean country. In 2006
Morales also seized oil and gas fields and refineries belonging
to Brazil’s state-run Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

“The Spanish government deeply regrets the Bolivian
government’s decision to nationalize Sabsa, and particularly the
police occupation of its headquarters,” Spain’s Foreign
Ministry said in an e-mailed statement. “Spain does not
consider this a friendly act.”

Morales in December ordered the seizure of four units
controlled by Spain’s biggest utility, Iberdrola, following the
takeover seven months earlier of Spain’s Red Electrica.

The ruling Movement Toward Socialism party, or MAS, wants
Morales to run for a third presidential term in elections next
year.

Bolivia’s economy is estimated to have grown by at least 5
percent in 2012 for the third straight year, according to the
International Monetary Fund. Gross domestic product will expand
by 5.5 percent this year, Finance Minister Luis Arce told local
press on Nov. 9.